White Noise
by ZombieXoX
Summary: Fortress Maximus struggling to cope with the new inmates joining him in the brig of the Lost Light.


The laughter was manic. It faded quickly as Maximus fell into the pit of writhing Decepticons all of whom were viciously eager to receive him.

He was accepted, almost excitedly welcomed; When he contacted with the Decepticon's outstretched arms it was a surreal moment, there was no pain of impact, he'd been caught – saved from a damaging collision with the rugged ground.

A numbness overtook him. Gazing up he could see a menacing figure, blackened into a dark spectre, just a pair of bloody optic staring at him – they shone with more expression than any frown or smile. Maximus saw a vision of the soul in the mech responsible for his undoing. A cold, gripping fear, more than that, terror, terror clutched Max's spark and he recognised his doom staring back at him.

Then the pulling began, the tearing, the gnashing, servos delving into sensitive seams and ripping out wires. Circuitry was fouled, as armour was bent and folded back exposing new, delicate inner working to perverse violation.

But the numbness was still there. Maximus's limbs locked. Disbelief stunned him into catatonia. It slowed his thought processes to a protective standstill. Overworked systems struggled to comprehend what was happening to him.

He'd been lowered to the ground, the act was slow because there were so many servos all desperate to rend a chunk from his body that he was delayed in suspension for a heady moment of reflection upon all his transgressions which escalated to this irreversible point.

Then his world spun uncontrollably.

His back contacted with the terrain.

The numbness contracted and a raging agony was distributed through his fuel lines.

An encumbering red mist descended upon him, blotting the figures looming over him into shapeless blobs of blackness.

Maximus was being pulled apart piece by piece.

His lack of reaction prompted his attackers to test the limits of their savagery.

Touches became intrusive, invading. Maximus was exposed. The presence of fear grew in his spark, bigger and bigger.

He gasped deeply, intakes opening wide to dispel overheated air from taxed, paralysed systems.

It was a mistake. He'd exposed more sensitive circuitry: fragile circuitry that became quickly corrupted. Stuffed and bent out of shape, Maximus choked on overheated air, unable to expel it. It remained trapped inside, stale and warming, panicking his internals.

Flashing lights and internal reports warned him of damage he was incapable of correcting. It continued to build, adding to a pressure suffocating his spark.

His movements were sluggish. He couldn't thrash off his attackers. His attempts at defence only spurred them on.

Groping servos probed into fresh wounds seeking new ways to defile and torture.

Anything for a sick kick.

Maximus groaned and heaved. A charge he couldn't dispel collected in his joints, it lashed angry sparks at invading fingers and stirred howls of glee from his attackers.

The sounds were getting louder. They existed outside the red haze confounding his processor. Shouts and barks and woops all equally terrifying. Max couldn't escape from them.

"Stop!" He howled out of desperation. The thickening band of unrecyclable air pressing uncomfortably against his spark casing – the feeling sending shudders of panic through him.

On his command the bestial picking apart of his systems ceased.

But the noise continued - Louder and louder.

Wheezing manage to exchange a few wisps of frowsty air for something refreshing and cool.

Vaguely he was aware of his surroundings darkening. The wall of red bleeding into a shadow. But the laughter and vicious chatter continued intensely. It was all around him.

Suddenly he wasn't alone anymore.

A weight was pressing down on his aching body.

Overlord.

It was Overlord.

Grinning. Laving his glossa across lips stained with someone else's energon. Max's energon.

Max gagged on terror. His limbs weren't responding but Overlord was moving against him, breaking him, violating him.

Max was defenceless.

The jeering, the frustrated howls and cries - they were joined by Overlord's grotesque, holler of triumph.

Fort Max jerked awake, gasping for air.

His cooling systems worked up into a frenzy so powerful it sent tremors through his plating.

He'd escaped the hellish nightmare pinning him down but the noise remained. The brig was full of new inmates collected recently by the crew of the Lost Light.

They were riotous and vulgar. The Decepticons swung on the bars like animals and the connections Max formed with his current situation and the condition of Garrus - 9 made it difficult for him to cope with the resemblance.

In his recharge his mind built a facsimile of his plight based on the gruesome noise. Max never recharged for long – each time he powered down he was plagued by the onslaught of his most terrible memories. He recognised that he wasn't in danger but that wasn't enough.

Fort Max was afraid but he was too...the word would have been _proud_ but Max had been robbed of his pride. No, Max was too cowardly to confess to the warden the proximity of so many angry Decepticons was destroying his nerve.

He felt ashamed to ask anything of anyone after his outburst.

When the whir of his cooling fans finally died down the nervous clatter of his armour remained. Fort Max sat up in his recharge berth and scrubbed servos down his tired face, digging the heels of his palms into his optics as if it would expunge the images of Overlord looming above him or the sight of so many Decepticon hands pulling him apart of the seams.

From somewhere down the corridor came a loud, hollow bang. Fort Max couldn't tell what caused it but it stirred an even louder chorus from the Decepticons that extorted a whimper from the large Autobot.

Max cursed his pitiable self.

Was this what he'd been reduced to? What he'd _allowed_ himself to be degraded to under Overlord's heel?

Every fibre pleaded for it to be untrue but it was a sad fact that Fortress Maximus did not recognise himself anymore.

The walls closed in on him.

Max leant forward until the fluids swimming in his head made him dizzy. Intakes shuddering out of him, a particular nausea rose from within.

He couldn't shut out the noise. It just got more unnerving. Every cycle that passed Max felt he had less privacy and worried that soon the Decepticons would be let loose on him again.

Large servos pressed to his audios - anything to block out the chaos rooting deeply in his processor.

His intakes fought to regulate the fluctuating state of his systems approaching a critical condition. Max tried to focus of their rhythm, hunting for something to soothe and apply a balm to his fragile condition.

More noise. Someone had taken a hold on the bars of their cells, they kept shaking and shaking. The racket travelled the length of the brig to Max's cell – the bars linked at the ceiling quivered.

There was only so much he was able to tolerate. His restraint was wound tightly, so taut he was on the verge of snapping – again. But there was nothing to receive the brunt of his frustrations other than himself...and Max was beginning to wonder whether that was such a bad thing.

Overlord had described a hundred and one delicious ways to kill a mech. As sick as it was, everyone of those ways was looking frighteningly tempting. Because nobody understood, and nobody sympathised not after...not after _Rung_.

The Lost Light could have been his salvation, but he couldn't accept it. He had so much anger it was boiling out of him. He'd wanted everyone to know, to share in the betrayal and neglect he'd suffered.

Now he just needed peace. Just a little.

Max recoiled in on himself, wishing he could hide. Being such a big mech it was difficult to be accepted as vulnerable when all he ever put forward was the front of a prison warden. Iit was hard to understand that there was someone else lurking underneath - Haunted and needy.

But no one saw that. So no one came. No one at all.

In a brig full of people he was utterly alone.

All that filled his thoughts was inescapable desolation...

...and more noise.  
Clanging, swearing, screaming.

Max was bending, so close to breaking, desperate for relief from the strain of sleepless nights and a guilty conscious.

Thick fingers gingerly probed the gaps in his armour searching for the delectably painful points Overlord enjoyed toying with.

After all, who'd notice? Who'd care?

His fans ran a little quicker, building in pace in time with the pulse of his spark.

All added to the thunderous noise in his audios.

By contemplating such things Fort Max imagined how much satisfaction it would give Overlord. How much the sadist would love to acknowledge, and revel in, the depths of how he'd truly fucked up the unbreakable warden of Garrus -9.

But all Maximus could focus on was the thought of escape; the light at the end of the elongated dark tunnel he'd been trudging down for too long. It was beginning to give him something to aspire towards. He craved the release, he didn't even care for how much it would pleasure Overlord to see his favourite toy sabotage his own fuel lines artfully mimicking the way Overlord used to splice them apart.

There was a particularly fat vein Max found in his wrist. It was one of Overlord's favourites. Fortress Maximus remembered the dull, numbing haze that consumed him whenever that line was nicked and drained.

He pressed his thumb against the fuel line, inhibiting its flow.

For an instant the rioting beyond his cell stilled to a near hush. Max thought he'd imagined it.

He gulped and pressed a little firmed. Fans dropping to a low hum like a great heave in a storm.

He shuttered his optics. Completely focusing on the pulse of his spark.

"Fortress Maximus."

Ultra Magnus caught him off guard.

Fort Max jerked out of his spiral of depression. His optics rotated and brightened in a hasty struggle to focus upon the Duly Appointed Enforcer.

Ultra Magnus showed no indication of realising what he'd interrupted. He was as impassive as ever and since his arrival the noise had subsided into quiet, curt, disrespectful murmurs muttered in cautious undertones.

"Sir?" Maximus managed, his vocal processor felt raw. He might not have been as active recently but too much thinking had taken his toll. Drowsiness distorted his speech.

"Given present circumstances I've come to ask if you desire," Ultra Magnus's audio's picked up on a misuse of grammar further down the corridor, he made a point of scowling at the cell belonging to the Decepticon responsible for the transgression before reconsidering Fortress Maximus, "...Alternate accommodation?"

Fort Max's jaw hung ajar, he felt awash with so much relief it weakened him. The fact that he was being considered...

It brought warmth to his spark that attacked the frigid bitterness skulking there.

Numbly he nodded.

As was customary Ultra Magnus made quick work of having him relocated to a more secluded part of the Lost Light's brig.

When Fortress Magnus set foot in his new abode and all he heard was the soft rumble of the ships engines he couldn't feel angry when the cell door slid shut behind him.

Ultra Magnus loitered outside the cell, waiting for Max to settle.

"I am sorry to keep you here Fortress Maximus. But, I hope you appreciate why I do not have a choice."

Max was too tired to listen to what might have been some sort of apology if he squinted at it.

But he did appreciate the sentiment and he made that much known.

Feeling his good deed had been fulfilled to satisfactory completion Ultra Magnus left, quietly and Fortress Maximus reclined in his berth.

Sighing deeply, he relished the quiet and the promise of an uninterrupted recharge to order his thoughts.


End file.
